From what perspective do you want to share your story: victim or overcomer?

• By candidasullivan
• May 1, 2024
• No Comments

I’m done! 

Done, I whispered as the tears rolled down my face. It wasn’t a big deal. If I told you what made me so incredibly mad and sad simultaneously, you probably wouldn’t understand how something small could evoke such heartache, but it did. Even the smallest deterrent can seem devastating when we barely hang onto our hope by a thread. 

As the tears washed over my face, I thought about all the prayers I had prayed for this particular situation and all of the tears I’d shed. For more than twenty years, I’ve begged God to change things. That’s the part, if I’m being sincere, I don’t understand. 

How can God have the ability to change things and not do it? How can He watch us suffer, beg, plead for His help, and not do anything?

The not-so-good part of me wanted to fight and demand change. But I’ve done that before, and it only causes more pain. Since I didn’t want to add any more pain to an already unbearably painful situation, I poured my heart out onto paper. 

I told God about it all. I told Him I was losing hope and didn’t want to give up. But lately, as hard as I try, I can’t see any evidence of things getting better. If anything, they get worse. 

It’s heartwrenching when you feel like it’s already rock bottom, and then it gets a little worse. In these moments, it feels so lonely. We often feel unseen, unheard, and unloved. 

But that’s because we have our eyes on the wrong thing. As long as I focus on the enemy and the storm’s strength, I don’t see God. He’s behind the layers of hopelessness, heartache, and despair. 

That’s why it all feels impossible: I’m not looking to the One who can make it possible. 

Sometimes, God lets me exhaust all of my possibilities. He lets me try all my ways, continue to fail, and come short so that I can fully see Him in the blessing. If I can fix it, then I don’t need God. 

However, when it all falls apart, and I KNOW without any doubt that I couldn’t do it, I can see my Lord’s true strength and power. 

God knows my situation.

He knows every prayer I’ve prayed. 

God knows how many tears I’ve cried. 

And He knows when the time is exactly right to answer my prayer in the BEST way possible. 

So, I wait. And while I wait, I want to do so with love, integrity, and patience. I want my FAITH to be bigger than my fear and doubts. God knows I’m human. He knows the enemy aggravates me at every turn. And He also knows me.

God knows the blessing on the other side of this trial is precisely what I need, so He does what is best for me—even if that’s not what I want. I can get mad about it, cry about it, and resist it all. Or I can TRUST GOD! 

Trusting God is hard. We trade what we want for God’s will. Sometimes, what we want and what God wants for us are the same; other times, they are not. The powerful part is knowing in the depths of our soul that God is right. 

God is right, sweet friend, even when it doesn’t feel that way. So we praise Him through the messiness and heartache of it all because we know that God will give us the best option when it’s all said and done. 

Great faith stories don’t come from easy lives. It takes great hardship to showcase faith to others. When we endure and press on despite our pain, we give others a glimpse of our Lord. Amid our suffering, our praise becomes the loudest. 

My dad told me recently that we should be honored to suffer for God. It’s a great blessing to be counted worthy to endure hardships on His behalf. 

The enemy will never stop attacking us and those we love. So, we can never stop loving them and praying for them. Love is what makes the most significant difference. It seeps into the cracks and mends the brokenness and pain. 

I’m so thankful that God has never given up on me, nor will He ever give up on me. He never states He is done with me. While I’m sure He gets completely aggravated with me sometimes, my faults and failures are not tied to His love for me. 

Sometimes, God allows us to experience situations so we have a story to share. God can take our pain and use it for good. So, I want to keep my eyes on the Lord and be an overcomer in my story. One day, as I tell this story, I will remember the pain and how God transformed my heartaches into blessings.

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